Lightsabres: Why so rare?

[Patrick Ogaard]

Lightsabers are not so easy to make when one considers that part of passing your trials for knighthood is construction of your own saber. The force must be used to properly attune the crystal. And there is a concern about self wounding. A lightsaber can only be properly wielded by a jedi, because the force helps him fight with a weapon that has essentially no mass and whose real potential can only be realized by a force user.

Okay, point 1) The force must be used to properly attune the crystal (emphasis mine). Why is that so? Where is that written?

2) Okay, this whole 'jedi get the most out of it' isn't a factor in choosing to wield a lightsabre over, say, a giant axe or force pike. A professional stunt driver gets the most out of a car, but that doesn't mean a normal person can't use one effectively. Even if the blade is massless (and they don't move like it is), that doesn't really complicate matters as much as you think. I grant you can't use it with the finesse and delicacy as a Jedi, but how much danger of self-wounding do you think you'd be in if you were up against an angry bar patron with a chair when you have a lightsabre?

Star Wars, The Visual Dictionary
"While the pure energy blade has no mass, the electromagnetically generated arc wave creates a strong gyroscopic effect that makes the lightsaber a distinct challenge to handle. Operating on the complex principle of tightly controlled arc-wave energy, it requires focusing elements made from naturally-occurring crystals that cannot be synthesized. A lightsaber must be assembled by hand, as there is no exact formula for the crucial alignment of the irregular crystals. The slightest misalignment will cause the weapon to detonate on activation."

The Visual Dictionary for AOTC indicates that Count Dooku's lightsaber was made using Sith synthetic crystals, but it is not stated whether the production of the synthetic crystals produces a more regular, predictable structure that would allow mass production.

Basically, then, the evidence points to the likelihood that those portions of the Star Wars home galaxy still commonly using lightsabers employ the weapons in a manner similar to the way many archaic Earth cultures employed their swords. A lightsaber is a weapon obvioiusly requiring considerable training to use it at all effectively. A lightsaber is also a weapon obviously requiring considerable sapient craftsmanship to produce, and even then one might want to have an expendable droid ignite the lightsaber the first few times.

Those two factors together make the lightsaber an expensive weapon for a highly trained elite, a weapon to be handed down through the generations (since Grandpa's old lightsaber isn't as likely to explode in your hand as the bright shiny new one from Old Snoozor the Sabermaker).

Vibroweapons are a much cheaper and simpler proposition. They work just like regular edged weapons when the power goes out, and regular self defense, martial arts or close combat training is adequate to effectively use a vibroshiv, a force lance or a vibroaxe. The only thing they can't stand up to is being bisected by a lightsaber. And, if you have five or more meters of space between you and the enemy, a blaster is a better idea unless you're up against Jedi.

[Eleas]

When has a lightsaber ever been built by a machine?

Young Jedi Knights. The Shadow Academy used mass-produced blades, if I recall correctly.

You're right. Were those machine made, though, or just made on an assembly line of Force-sensitives (or normal Joes with force-sensitives working only the parts they need to make)? I think they're just explained as being mass-produced, so it could still be consistent with the EU."

The ANH novelisation breaks the back of that theory, however.

Incidentally, Corran's use of a cubit zirchonia bugged the hell out of me. It should not have worked, and it was so stupid that I could not believe I was reading it. That is part of why I dislike I, Jedi.

Indeed.

[Eleas]

Star Wars, The Visual Dictionary
"While the pure energy blade has no mass, the electromagnetically generated arc wave creates a strong gyroscopic effect that makes the lightsaber a distinct challenge to handle. Operating on the complex principle of tightly controlled arc-wave energy, it requires focusing elements made from naturally-occurring crystals that cannot be synthesized."

Luke Synthesized his crystal. It's in the Radio Drama.

"A lightsaber must be assembled by hand, as there is no exact formula for the crucial alignment of the irregular crystals. The slightest misalignment will cause the weapon to detonate on activation."

Shadow Academy. Also the ANH novelisation, which hardly supports that supposition.

The Visual Dictionary for AOTC indicates that Count Dooku's lightsaber was made using Sith synthetic crystals, but it is not stated whether the production of the synthetic crystals produces a more regular, predictable structure that would allow mass production.

Interesting.

Basically, then, the evidence points to the likelihood that those portions of the Star Wars home galaxy still commonly using lightsabers employ the weapons in a manner similar to the way many archaic Earth cultures employed their swords. A lightsaber is a weapon obvioiusly requiring considerable training to use it at all effectively. A lightsaber is also a weapon obviously requiring considerable sapient craftsmanship to produce, and even then one might want to have an expendable droid ignite the lightsaber the first few times.

The lightsaber may also, due to the aforementioned gyroscopic effects, be particularly tricky to handle, even beyond what one would expect from a massless weapon.

Those two factors together make the lightsaber an expensive weapon for a highly trained elite, a weapon to be handed down through the generations (since Grandpa's old lightsaber isn't as likely to explode in your hand as the bright shiny new one from Old Snoozor the Sabermaker).

Then why would every Jedi be required to build his or her own saber? Surely such a venture would thin the ranks of recruits?

Vibroweapons are a much cheaper and simpler proposition. They work just like regular edged weapons when the power goes out, and regular self defense, martial arts or close combat training is adequate to effectively use a vibroshiv, a force lance or a vibroaxe. The only thing they can't stand up to is being bisected by a lightsaber. And, if you have five or more meters of space between you and the enemy, a blaster is a better idea unless you're up against Jedi.

There is another thing mentioned that vibroweapons don't do as well: cutting through bulkheads. Though Stormtroopers appear to have specialized cutters for that, or discharge their weapons on overload; I forget which.

[Lord of the Farce]

I still don't get it. I mean, if the crystal (which from most diagram I have seen of shows it to be at the back, not something at the front to act like a focusing prism or whatnot) blows up if it's even a little misalined, that's got to be a pretty damned fragile weapon. I mean, just how much punishment is a lightsaber likely to take in the course of a Jedi's work? A mere Force Push or butter-fingering can cause a lightsabre to get a nice jolt, or even getting shot out from a chute (ROTJ) can cause the crystal to get bumped around inside the lightsabre...

In short, lightsabres would be pretty crap weapons if some official literature is held up in higher regard than they should have.

[Patrick Ogaard]

An apprentice Jedi producing a lightsaber is supposed to have well developed Force sensing abilities, presumably making the selection and proper alignment of the crystals a useful test of the apprentice's skills. A regular craftsman would have to spend years, perhaps decades, getting the proper "feel" for the proper selection and alignment, so that a commercially produced lightsaber would be extremely expensive based simply on the skilled craftsmanship that goes into producing such a weapon.

The statement that the crystals of a Jedi lightsaber can not be synthetically produced would appear to be accurate enough if one allows the following two caveats: a proper Jedi lightsaber does not use synthetically produced crystals, only 1) Sith lightsabers and 2) those produced by Jedi without access to proper naturally produced crystals. If the radio play should disallow my interpretation, well, then the radio play trumps my interpretation.

Regarding the matter of the crystals being vulnerable to misalignment, that would apply only if the crystals are not properly clamped in place. Proper securing of crystals and similarly sensitive components has been a vital factor in radio technology and electronics for almost a century in the real world (just think quartz watch), and likely several hundred thousand years in the Star Wars galaxy. I'd want to bet that having crystals accidentally jarred loose in a properly made lightsaber is an essentially unheard-of occurrence. After all, the same force push that misaligns a lightsaber's crystals could as easily misalign the components of a heavy military blaster's ionization chamber and make the weapon blow up in the user's hands, another unheard-of occurrence, one that would make lightsabers nearly irrelevant as offensive weapons for Jedi facing blaster-armed opponents.

As for cutting through bulkheads, a properly equipped pirate boarding party should include a takeover team equipped with shock grenades, fusion-cutters, plasma torches and sapper charges. (Ref: Han Solo's Revenge.) That leaves the others to carry the blasters, force-pikes, rocket launchers and vibro-axes.

The fact that Imperial stormtroopers always carry a thermal detonator on their persons, that being the cylinder at the small of the back that looks like an old-fashioned gas mask container), indicates that Imperial doctrine goes more in the direction of simply blowing recalcitrant bulkheads and blast doors out of existence. Lightsabers would simply be irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of stormtrooper missions, including boarding operations. It looks like a plasma torch or fusion-cutter was used on the hatch of Leia's consular vessel, followed by the application of a sapper charge. The stormtrooper assault on the Death Star cell block seemed to involve not too much more than a thermal detonator set to fairly low blast intensity.

[Ender]

No, we have contradictory statements; Obi-Wan Kenobi clearly states in the ANH novelization that lightsabres are still in use in some parts of the galaxy. Granted, this may have changed with the advent of the Empire, with Obi-Wan being unaware of the change, but the fact that Obi-Wan knew of places where lightsabres were still in use at some point during his life in the Old Republic directly contradicts the statements put forth in Shadow Hunter. So no, it isn't pointless.

The Maul statement happened 32 years before the Jedi purge. All the lightsabres that are being used could have belonged to Jedi and were kept as collectors items.

Plus there was the Inquisitorium and the Dark Side Adepts. The jedi kept it secret from the public at large, but the Sith still passed it on and people who managed to get their hands on lightsabres kept them.

I see no contradiction.

Obi-Wan said lightsabres were USED, not kept as collector's items. Even if the the many thousands of lightsabres owned by the Jedi were to come into the hands of other beings and be used as weapons, this fairly small amount would not be enough to warrant Obi-Wan making a statement saying that the weapons are in common use elsewhere in the galaxy. For Obi-Wan to say lightsabres are in common use elsewhere in the galaxy, they must be owned in great quantities.

Like I said, there were all the Dark Siders aroung using lightsabres.

[Master of Ossus]

I still don't get it. I mean, if the crystal (which from most diagram I have seen of shows it to be at the back, not something at the front to act like a focusing prism or whatnot) blows up if it's even a little misalined, that's got to be a pretty damned fragile weapon. I mean, just how much punishment is a lightsaber likely to take in the course of a Jedi's work? A mere Force Push or butter-fingering can cause a lightsabre to get a nice jolt, or even getting shot out from a chute (ROTJ) can cause the crystal to get bumped around inside the lightsabre...

In short, lightsabres would be pretty crap weapons if some official literature is held up in higher regard than they should have.

Actually, the VD clearly shows that the lightsaber crystal is reasonably near the front of the weapon. Lightsabers, while difficult to construct, appear to be incredibly robust weapons. Yes, if they are slightly misaligned they are dangerous, but they are able to take considerable punishment without becoming mis-aligned. Lightsabers have functioned without adjustment, even after thousands of years of disuse.

[Master of Ossus]

With regard to synthetic crystals, Jaina Solo used a synthetic crystal to create her lightsaber (ref. the aptly named Lightsabers). It is not purely a Sith skill that allows for the creation of such crystals.

[Patrick Ogaard]

It was mentioned earlier on in this thread that fusioncutters could produce wounds like those of a lightsaber. It was then also mentioned by another poster that fusioncutters were supposed to be too bulky to be used effectively as weapons. So...

What if lightsabers are simply extremely compact, weaponized fusioncutters? After all, in the ANH novelization, Ben Kenobi implied that fusioncutters were commonly lused as weapons:

"Anyone can use a blaster or fusioncutter - but to use a lightsaber well was a mark of someone a cut above the ordinary."


Where fusioncutters are used in the novels, their effects on materials are much the same as those of lightsabers, quickly and easily slashing through even heavy armor and construction materials. The difficulty of miniaturizing a fusioncutter, complete with power supply, into something not larger than a compact flashlight would explain most of the problems of producing lightsabers. The need to provide a meter-long blade instead of the few centimeters of blade that a fusioncutter apparently provides would likely explain the rest.

It may not be the perfect answer, but it is one potential answer.